Virginia was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. She came to Dayton, Oh in 2003, after her husband relocated due to a job in Ohio. They have two natural children and a bonus child, who are currently attending college in Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky. She is a litigation attorney by training, licensed in New Jersey and PR, but no longer practices law. When she arrived in Ohio, she worked for close to two decades in conflict resolution, arbitration, schedule manager, chef, school volunteer, taxi driver, accounts payable, domestic manager, etc., she was tapped on her shoulder by her long time friend Imelda to the apply for the position of Program Director at El Puente.  Currently she holds the position of Program Director at El Puente since April of 2021, on the tail end of Covid. At that point El Puente had to reinvent itself and step in to satisfy the needs of the Latino Community that resulted from the shut down. El Puente went from an organization that provided an after school program to a Food Bank donation center, laptop lender (we obtained a grant to purchase laptops and lent them to our students so that they could connect to the schools through zoom); ran a virtual after school program, assisted people with payments of rent, utilities and some medical bills. In addition, we were awarded several grants to do Kroger's gift cards to members of our community. Our program saw an expansion in many different directions.  Virginia holds many hats in the organization, she is the grant writer, human resources, purchasing manager, and works creating new collaborations and developing partnerships that can benefit the community. She manages the day to day operation of the program and represents the program in many social outlets. One of those partnerships is with Prevent Blindness, with whom we connected to provide free vision exams and glasses to our community.  In 2022, she was approached by the then director of Ohio Commission of Latino Affairs, to apply for the Mental Health Navigator grant. We were able to form a team of highly qualified individuals to work on this grant. Due to the size of our organization, 3 part-time employees, we had to modify the scope in order to achieve the desired goal. We have gathered information on mental health providers in the Montgomery County area and collected data on the needs of the community. We hope to keep on pushing forward and obtaining support from other partners in the area to continue this program. Currently we are developing with the Wright State Univ Latino Center, the Latino Medical Student Association, and other Latino medical providers a Mobile health clinic to come every month to our building to provide some medical services free of charge.  Virginia is always looking for creative ways to bring services and resources to the Latino community. She will not shy away from asking the hard questions to foundations and other agencies when the services are not meeting the standard people deserve.

Imelda was born in Chihuahua, MX. She came to the U.S. with her husband and two young daughters over 20 years ago. She is a nurse by training. She arrived in the city of Dayton and like many other immigrants, she faced all kinds of obstacles and frustrations ranging from language barriers, inability to continue working as a nurse, how to obtain certain goods and services, how to enroll her children in school, to financial independence. She missed having a community and little by little she started to know people and got involved as a volunteer at church, school and at the community center in the area. Around 2011 she was approached by Hermana Maria from the Ministerio Hispano to help with an afterschool program at a recently formed non-profit called El Puente. She worked with the parents to help them navigate the different aspects of a newly arrived person in Dayton. She provided information and resources to the families in regards to the educational system in the U.S., how to seek out different services and gave them tools on how to support their children to succeed academically. She became the bridge to connect the Latino population to services in Dayton as well as to many other resources. Currently she is the Parent Advocate and community Liaison for El Puente. In that capacity she works with the families of the children that attend the after-school tutoring program and works with the parents to teach them how to work together with the child and the school. In addition, she is connected with the Latino community and works diligently with Kroger's to obtain food donations. Last year we received a grant from OCHLA that challenged us to develop a Mental Health Navigator line. In order to do that, Imelda has had to keep track of the nature of the calls she receives and direct those to mental health services that have the capability to work with the Latino population. Imelda's position requires that she maintains good communication with adults, the children that attend our program and the community in general. She has earned the respect and trust of the community she serves. She is the heart of El Puente, she is the first point of contact that many newly arrived Latino immigrants will have and she will do her best to connect them with organizations that can meet their most pressing needs. She has set a high standard of service and dedication to the community that everyone that meets her can aspire to meet. In addition to her job at El Puente, she dedicates numerous hours as a volunteer at St. Mary's church. She coordinates the retreats for the Quinceaneras, other youth group engagements and has run a program called "El Milagro de la Mujer" where she teaches leadership and self-esteem techniques to women in the community. Further, she runs a folkloric dance group called "Orgullo Mexicano" sharing her Mexican culture and heritage with people who attend festivals around Ohio.

Teaching is my passion and I have been lucky enough to be doing it for more than 30 years. I was born and raised in the beautiful region of Michoacan, Mexico. I earned my teaching degree at Escuela Normal Motolinía (a Catholic university in Morelia, Michoacan) and have received additional training in the Montessori method of education, educational psychology, English as a second language, psycho-motor skills, and math for preschoolers. I’ve worked in both Catholic and public elementary schools in Mexico and the United States, and I’ve taught Spanish as a second language in the private sector. As the Academic Coordinator of El Puente, I collaborate with our students’ classroom teachers to find the best ways of improving each child’s areas of weakness while nurturing his or her strengths. My ultimate goal as an educator is to instill in every child a lifetime love of learning and the confidence to know that they can learn anything and be anything they want. On a personal note, my husband Rafael and I are blessed to have three grown children and five grandchildren. When not working or spending time with my family, I love being involved in the local community and have volunteered with local schools and the Catholic Hispanic Ministry of Dayton. I also enjoy hiking, swimming, arts and crafts, and of course reading.